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Odds and Ends

@no-lo-lo / no-lo-lo.tumblr.com

A collection of web-noise I like.
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It amazes me how the National Park Service is the most vocal department against Fascism. Even the Democrats are a mumble when compared to these park rangers' adamant denouncement and exposing of this administration. Support our bravest federal workers who keep our world one worth living in.

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Several documentaries publically treating Luigi Mangione as guilty before his trial even started got released over the past 2 months.

Here's the billion dollar companies behind them.

while this is a completely valid warning... i just want to take a second to remind everyone that you could literally say this about almost any movie, documentary or piece of media made since 2011. 90% of the United States media is controlled by 6 companies who create over 50% of the content.

and if you want to take it a step further because Vanguard and BlackRock were listed on the original graphic, their reach is lightyears beyond just media. BlackRock and/or Vanguard are among the three largest institutional investors for 505 out of 505 of the S&P 500. (100%). one or the other is the single largest institutional investor in 422 of these (84%). they, along with State Street, control about 23% of the votes of the S&P 500 single-class companies.

the truth is that virtually all corporate-backed media that you consume in 2025 from top to bottom is going to be subject to the oversight of the board of directors for one of these 6 mega billionaire-controlled companies. you should have that fact in mind basically at all times.

Donald Trump Is Not Joking About Annexing Canada: A Fucking Timeline

December 3, 2024: Trump's quip about Canada becoming 51st state was a joke, says minister who was there (CBC News ๐Ÿ‡จ๐Ÿ‡ฆ) <- This is when it could have feasibly been a joke

January 7, 2025: Donald Trump is quoted in a press conference directly stating his intentions to annex Canada (New York Times, timestamp 0:45 ๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ธ) <- This is where Americans should have stopped telling Canadians it's just a joke

REPORTER 1: Are you also considering military force to annex and acquire Canada? DONALD TRUMP: No. Economic force.

February 7, 2025: Trudeau says Trump threat to annex Canada 'is a real thing' (BBC ๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡ง) <- This is where the Commonwealth starts to take it seriously

Trudeau suggested Trump has floated the idea of taking over Canada and making it the "51st state" because he wants to access the country's critical minerals. "Mr Trump has it in mind that the easiest way to do it is absorbing our country and it is a real thing," the prime minister said.

February 9, 2025: "Trump's national security adviser: 'I don't think there's any plans to invade Canada'" (NBC News ๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ธ) <- CANADIANS NOTICE THAT THIS IS NOT A VERY STRONG DENIAL OF POSSIBLE MILITARY FORCE

February 10, 2025: Trump Confirms Heโ€™s Serious About Wanting Canada As 51st State (Forbes ๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ธ)

Fox News host Bret Baier asked Trump whether Trudeau was right in telling business leaders the U.S. presidentโ€™s threat to absorb Canada is a โ€œreal thing,โ€ to which Trump agreed with Trudeau and responded, โ€œYes it is.โ€

February 12, 2025: โ€˜Trump effectโ€™: How US tariffs, โ€™51st stateโ€™ threats are shaking up Canada (Al Jazeera ๐Ÿ‡ถ๐Ÿ‡ฆ) <- This is where the rest of the fucking world outside America starts to take it seriously

February 18 2025: CBC releases podcast episode: "What if the U.S. invaded Canada?" (CBC's Front Burner ๐Ÿ‡จ๐Ÿ‡ฆ)

โ€œI would be working urgently with [European Nato allies] to build a closer security relationshipโ€ฆ in a time when the United States can be a threat,โ€ said [Canada's] ex-foreign minister and finance minister at the final Liberal leadership debate last week.
Eby: "If this president wants to annex Canada, he should save his breath to cool his soup, it is never going to happen.โ€

March 7, 2025: How Trumpโ€™s โ€˜51st Stateโ€™ Canada Talk Came to Be Seen as Deadly Serious (New York Times ๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ธ) <- This is where American news media starts to treat this as maybe possibly not a joke

March 9, 2025: U.S. Congress bill aims to prevent funding of invasion of Canada (CTV News ๐Ÿ‡จ๐Ÿ‡ฆ) <- This is where you should understand that military force is ON THE TABLE

March 13, 2025 (TODAY): Trump threatens to acquire Canada, Greenland while next to NATO chief (Global News ๐Ÿ‡จ๐Ÿ‡ฆ)

โ€œTo be honest with you, Canada only works as a state...This would be the most incredible country visually,โ€ [Trump] said. โ€œIf you look at a map, they drew an artificial line right through it, between Canada and the U.S., just a straight artificial line. Somebody did it a long time ago, many many decades ago, and it makes no sense.โ€ -Donald Trump

And hey, just for fun, let's contrast that with another quote:

First of all, I would like to emphasize that the wall that has emerged in recent years between Russia and Ukraine, between the parts of what is essentially the same historical and spiritual space, to my mind is our great common misfortune and tragedy...I am confident that true sovereignty of Ukraine is possible only in partnership with Russia. -Vladimir Fucking Putin, the year before launching an attack on Ukraine, which everyone also said he was joking about and definitely wouldn't do (2021 essay, Kremlin official website ๐Ÿ‡ท๐Ÿ‡บ)

I know you're overwhelmed, Americans, but please stop saying this is a joke. Canadians are anticipating an invasion, possibly within the year. This is not a fucking drill.

Brennan Lee Mulligan arguing for the primal nature of morality on Ep. 40โ€™s Fireside Chat is one of the funniest and realest things Iโ€™ve ever heard. He once again put into words what I have been trying to say for what feels like forever.

EDIT: No, I actually need to quote this out for myself.

โ€œOne of the things that happens a lot in philisophy that is, I think, a point of failure, potentially, in it, is that philosophy contains a lot of formal logic studies, and thereโ€™s a degree to want to sort of explicate, logically, everything, and go like, โ€˜What are the reasons and rationalities behind all of this?โ€ But I think ignoring the primal origins of morality- You donโ€™t need- If you watch someone kick a small animal, you donโ€™t need an explanation for why thatโ€™s bad. Itโ€™s a first- Itโ€™s a primary thing, right? And you get into weird positions when youโ€™re like, โ€˜I believe that humans should have good- be flourish and be happy, and have safety and joy!โ€™ And someone can literally just go โ€˜Why? To what end? To what end should they have joy?โ€™ And youโ€™re like โ€˜Not to what end. Iโ€™m saying this is the end for me. The end for me is joy and safety and peace.โ€™ And I get to say that because Iโ€™m a weird brain monster living in the universe and I can create meaning with my mind. Youโ€™re doing the same thing right now, but I just choose joy. Are you choosing something else? Because if you are, then weโ€™re in conflict!โ€ -Brennan Lee Mulligan, โ€œFireside Chat for WWW ep40 โ€˜Aid and Comfortโ€™โ€

Choose joy, motherfucker! If youโ€™re not, weโ€™re in conflict!!!

I donโ€™t think youโ€™re ready to have an adult conversation about politics until youโ€™re able to admit that there are things you love and enjoy that would not and should not exist in a just world. $8 billion dollar budget movies every other month donโ€™t exist in a just world. New 900 GB AAA video games every year donโ€™t exist in a just world. Next day delivery doesnโ€™t exist in a just world. 80 different soda brands donโ€™t exist in a just world.ย 

All of those things come from exploitation on some level, and if you wouldnโ€™t trade those for a world where everyone can eat and have a home no matter who they are or what they do, I donโ€™t know what to tell you.ย 

Man, this post makes me feel conflicted, because on the one hand, of the things listed, next-day delivery is the only one that DOES actually exist in the world today. The others are exaggerations, and while I understand the point being made, they do detract from it.

I understandโ€”and agree withโ€”that sentiment of, โ€œI want slower deliveries by drivers who are paid better,โ€ as one recent tumblr post put it. I absolutely agree with the idea that we need to produce and consume less as a culture, and that an actual substantive conversation about politics should involve willingness to relinquish the many modern luxuries that are built on exploitation.

I donโ€™t think these are good examples of those luxuries, though.

Large budget movies are possible because consumers (and investors) are willing to pay for them. A large budget is actually a necessary component in making sure workers are being adequately compensated; the fact that they currently are often exploited by studios is a result of deliberate misallocation of resources, not anything intrinsic to the size of the production. Same thing goes with high-quality video games. As for releasing a new film/game every month/year, thatโ€™s only unsustainable because thereโ€™s only a handful of monopolistic studios doing it. In a well-regulated industry that encourages growth and competition, we could see tens, if not hundreds of studios producing big-budget films and games. And, with a well-compensated and socially-supported citizenry, consumers would have enough disposable income to support it.

Similarly, the problem with soda isnโ€™t that we have 80 brands; itโ€™s that we have two. And those two brands each own 800 different labels. In a healthy economy, these monopolies would be dissolved, and we could support well over 80 moderately-sized independent beverage companies producing their own sodas.

Same-day delivery, again, could be easily supported with proper allocation of resources. Currently, we have huge centralized distributors like Amazon exploiting gig-workers with slave-wages to ferry cheap mass-produced crap to people, and thatโ€™s what makes it bad, not the speed at which they do it. If instead, we had something like a super-robust USPS, with well-compensated deliverypeople working reasonable hours within a decentralized network of independent-but-cooperative suppliers, there would be absolutely no reason why you couldnโ€™t get something delivered to you from the distro ten miles down the road within a day.

When we critique capitalism, and they respond, โ€œYeah, well capitalism made the cell phone youโ€™re using!โ€ our response shouldnโ€™t be, โ€œOh shit u right,โ€ it should be, โ€œNo, capitalism made the cell phone Iโ€™m using break after a year so Iโ€™ll buy a new one, and they use slave labor to do it while they pocket the rest.โ€

There are luxuries, and there are artificially-valued, mass-produced, built-to-break trash that are marketed as luxuries. But we donโ€™t solve the problems of fast-fashion by saying, โ€œWelp I guess I shouldnโ€™t wear clothes.โ€

yeah thatโ€™s a decent rebuttal imma reblog now

But we donโ€™t solve the problems of fast-fashion by saying, โ€œWelp I guess I shouldnโ€™t wear clothes.โ€

I want you to remember:

The fascists hate you too and they just will pretend otherwise until after they've killed the rest of us, before they turn on you.

Thanks to whoever tried, but I knew they'd never allow it.

Let's do it the old fashioned way. Spread it far and wide.

Reminder: you can't be the whole wall against stopping fascism by yourself. Nobody can. But you damn sure can be a brick.

There's a lot of good comments and tags in the notes, but this one is very important, I feel like it deserves some emphasis.

Part of how authoritarianism works is telling you that you can't stop it. And you can't stop it by yourself. But it wants to stop the train of thought there and let you fall into despair.

You need to remember the next part: you don't have to stop it by yourself.

You're not alone. Take care of your community and let your community take care of you. Supporting each other is so vital.

I love how these are from an Unreality subreddit but to my eye they just read like regular Tumblr shitposts. Did we cross-pollinate or something

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